Man off death row over jury makeup might face seventh trial

JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi prosecutor has tried and failed six times to send Curtis Flowers to the death chamber, with the latest trial conviction and death sentence overturned Friday because of racial bias in jury selection. Now that same prosecutor must decide whether to try Flowers a seventh time.

Doug Evans, who’s running unopposed this year for an eighth four-year term as district attorney for a seven-county swath of rural northern Mississippi, has shown no inclination to give up.

Flowers is accused of killing four people, execution-style, in a furniture store in 1996 in the town of Winona. Evans has tried Flowers six times, with four convictions overturned and the other two attempts ending in mistrials.

Evans’ efforts to keep black jurors off Flowers’ case were at the center of Flowers’ appeal to the Supreme Court. In an opinion by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court ruled 7-2 on Friday that during more than 20 years, Evans pursued a “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals,” with the goal of an all-white jury.

Evans didn’t return an email seeking comment Friday. He told reporters for American Public Media’s “In the Dark” podcast that he hadn’t decided whether to try Flowers again but remained confident of his guilt.

He disputes the high court’s conclusion that he sought to exclude black jurors.

“If they said that, that is not true,” Evans told the podcast.

The case began July 16, 1996, when four people were found shot to death inside Tardy Furniture in downtown Winona: 59-year-old owner Bertha Tardy and three employees — 45-year-old Carmen Rigby, 42-year-old Robert Golden and 16-year-old Derrick “Bobo” Stewart.

Months later, authorities arrested Flowers. Prosecutors say he was a disgruntled former employee who sought revenge because Tardy fired him and withheld most of his pay to cover the cost of merchandise he damaged. Nearly $300 was missing after the killings.

The defense says it’s not just that jury selection was flawed; it’s that Flowers is innocent. It says witness statements and physical evidence against Flowers are too weak to convict him.